Guide to Outbound Call Center Software Solutions in Kenya

Great Communication is at the center of every organization efficiency. A robust outbound call center software plays a great role towards smooth delivery of service.

Call or Contact centers can handle all the support services for any organization without them having to break a sweat. There are two types of call center solutions; Outbound and Inbound solutions.

Locally in Kenya, Robust Omnichannel Contact Center Software Solutions are becoming very important to organizations.  In this post, we’re going to cover various aspects of Outbound Call Center Software in Kenya.

so what’s an outbound call center?

The core function of an outbound call center organization, is to reach out customer and increase sales by targeting new leads and existing customers.  This is made possible by use of great call center software.

An outbound call center is made up of customer care representatives, or sales team whose main work to reach out to new clients and existing ones.

Top 3 Components of a Call Center 

As robust as an outbound or inbound call center may be, there are components that make it operational. This components can be divided into;

• Operations: Customer and client services, and also the sales team
• End User: New leads or prospects and existing customer
• Agents: The team that works behind the scene to ensure that your product are well pushed.

Services Covered by Outbound Call Center Software Solutions

Various Call center solutions varies depending with the organization. Majority of call center services providers covers one or more of the services below;

• Lead generation
• Appointment setting
• Scheduled callbacks
• Customer surveys
• Telesales, upsales, and renewals
• Customer retention
• Competitive market research

It’s also important to note, that a call center solutions has some slight difference from Contact Center.  Contact center software usually uses omnichannel features (Email, social media, chatbots etc). 

Features of Great Outbound Solution for live-agent

cloud-based call center software supports both inbound and outbound call center functionality. This means the solution can be efficient to your customer service team. Features to look for include;

1. Call Center Analytics feature

A built in analytics system is great for the agents. Metrics help to fine tune a campaign and better target audiences.  You can Generate various reports to get a full overview of how your call center is performing, including detailed statistics for each of your agents

2. Call Recording 

unlimited call recording features make it easy for customer agents to keep key information about the clients. This will come in handy particularly during a reminder to follow up on a prospect. 

3. click to call feature

Initiate outbound call from your dashboard while visiting your client website. This feature makes it easy to call and generate more leads.

4. CRM Integration 

You can integrate the solution with various such as ZohoCRM, and more. This will make it easy to manage the client database that you have and integrate with your CRM. 

5. Whisper Feature 

Provides whisper coaching feature allowing live-call coaching that is inaudible to customers. with this tool, you can whisper to the other agents incase you need help or they need assistance. 

6. Dialer Software 

Automated dialing is the main thing nowadays. Manual dialing is a thing of the past.

Dialer software has some features including;

a. Predictive dialer

This technology pre-determines when the agent is likely to handle the next call as result other contacts are dialed in advance.

b. Progressive dialer  

A progressive dialer connects the agent to the next call as soon as they’re done with the previous one.

c. Power dialer

A power dialer instantly dials the next number after a call ends. If the call was not responded to, it goes on to the next one.

d. Preview dialer

A preview dialer gives agents a brief idea about the next customer and lets them choose whether they want to dial the customer or skip to the next. 

key benefits of outbound call center software

Effective outbound calling 

with the various features inbuilt to the outbound call center software like auto dialer. It makes outbound calling more effective.  with CRM integration the focus is on talking and not dialing.

Outbound call centers also help managers do their jobs better with capabilities like availability-based call routing optimization

Reporting and Analytics

Most call center software come embedded with analytics and reporting features inbuilt. With such features it’s easy for Managers to set goals, track progress and analyze performance. You can be able to measure various metrics including; response time, call volume, call handled, quality.

Improved service delivery

Great outbound call center software offers a great opportunity for your customer service team to offer unified communication and response to your clients. This will result to customer satisfaction. 

Get Customer Feedback 

Calling is a great way to source for customer feedback. A simple call will give an agent the opportunity to understand the client needs. You get immediate feedback from end users.

Having the chance to get first hand customer feedback, you get the opportunity to improve on the organization product and service delivery. Every organization need to invest in outbound call center software solution. 

Difference between outbound and inbound contact centers

The major difference between the two is down to function. An outbound solution conducts call while an inbound solution receives calls.  Additionally, there is another option that called Hybrid. Hybrid solutions does both in that, it can receive and conduct call outside.

Below are the various difference between the two solutions;

Outbound call center uses

• Generate and qualify leads via cold outreach.
• Conduct market research to pinpoint customer preferences and analyze competitors.
• Provide phone support for proactive customer service

Inbound call center uses

• Receive and respond to support calls from existing customers.
• Process orders and payments and deal with payment issues.
• Inquire with customers about upgrades and/or renewals

Checklist for Running an Outbound Call Center

The major difficult with running an outbound call center is managing the productivity of the agents. While an outbound call center software makes work easy, challenges are bound to happen.

Here are the checklist  to help you meet these challenges head-on:  

1. Planning your campaign

The bottom line of an outbound call center are calling campaigns. This are projects aimed at selling a product or service to the end user. 

Some of these include:

• Setting Key Performance Indicators (KPI) like calls per user and connect rate to track your progress.
• Creating a timeline and including milestones.
• coming up with a thorough capacity planning to determine how many calls are to be handled by each agent.

2. Develop a Calling List

The calling list contains the phone numbers of potential leads and existing clients to cross sell to. You can generate this leads from inbound marketing or purchase from third-party organizations.

If buying from a third party, it’s better to sample the list to judge the quality.

Additionally, your call center users-agents should dynamically update the list so that each new agent can tell which are fresh prospects and have been approached before. If you want to save time, CRM software helps you to automate that as well.

3.  Motivate Agents.

Your agents should at all times be motivated to act on your business goals.  Outbound calls require specialized skills in persuasion and sales — it can be relatively more intensive than inbound calling. 

it’s of great significance to give timely perks and incentives for better agent performance. Such incentives motivates the agents to work harder and drive more prospects into clients. Motivation goes a long way in increasing agent productivity.  

4. Use Productivity Tools

Monitoring an agent work manually is usually subject to various errors. An approach backed by data ensure more insights into how an agent is delivering their service. Tools such as ASANA are great in managing daily activities.

Ready for an outbound call center software?

If you’re looking to have a great solution for your customer services and lead generation, you need to get in touch with us for our hybrid contact center software solution. 

Conclusion 

Outbound call centers solutions are a critical part of the sales, marketing, and support processes for many companies. You reach out to prospects and customers via phone calls to perform market research, generate leads, and more.